


5 Times Peter Had PTSD +1 Time He Knew

by naiadies



Category: Fantastic Four, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Johnny Storm (mentioned) - Freeform, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8490820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naiadies/pseuds/naiadies
Summary: -PANIC ATTACK WARNING--GORE WARNING-Peter doesn't understand PTSD and that's it. Plus comfort. Natasha is Pete's best bud.





	

**Author's Note:**

> PANIC ATTACKS ARE IN HERE  
> also I just really want Natasha/Peter friendship to happen

1 - It always starts small, a twinge of panic before the waves crash over him. Peter’s gotten used to it over time, trying to learn how to stop them or breathe through them, always trying to lessen the way it hurt. Currently, that's what he was trying to do, in the dark, alone, in an alleyway. The huge gash in his side - along with many other smaller cuts on the rest of his body - serve as souvenir from the fight he just had with Doc Ock. Doc Ock had apparently sharpened one of his claws for this battle, ready and prepared to dissect Spider-Man.  
Trying to catch his breath, Peter webbed up his side, hoping that would keep him from bleeding out before his healing factor got to it. He put his head between his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs, curling himself into the smallest physically possible Peter-ball he could.  
Every small sound - the cars down the street, the footsteps of the few people walking around, the rattling breath of that one hobo down the street - everything sounded like Doc Ock, ready to hunt him down while at his weakest, dissect him, experiment on him, and take everything from Peter. Whimpering, he tried to make himself even smaller, squeezing his eyes together so hard that it made lights dance behind his eyelids, he tried and tried to take deep breaths.  
After a few more tries, Peter’s lungs finally got the hang of it, taking the sweet air in and out steadily. A few minutes of stabilizing breaths, Peter slowly uncurled himself and slithered up the wall, breathing heavily.  
Exhausted, Peter swung back to Queens to sleep like normal, non-arachnid, non-vigilante people do.

  
2 - Peter doesn't know _how_ these people got the jump on him, but now he’s suddenly here, waking up, everything fuzzy from behind his mask. Not only that, five other people died because of this mess. He was in a dark room, where he could make out a table off to his left and a vent to his right. To the right of the vent there’s a metal door. Pain was the next thing he catalogued, a huge bruise on the side of his jaw, a couple of gashes here and there, and leather straps around his wrists and ankles. Shaking his head, Peter swallows roughly.  
After there were signs of him awakening, a figure stepped into the room. Peter couldn't tell who they were, but he decided they had malicious intent when they tightened the straps holding him down.  
“I would've at least waited until the second date. Do I look easy to you?” It was weak, Peter would admit, but so was he.  
“Actually you do, you were pretty easy to take down. Now, you wouldn't mind shutting up, would you? Thanks,” the figure commented dryly, stepping forward into his business. “So, you're probably wondering why you're here, right? Well,” giving him no time to answer, they moved on, “it's because me and my…colleagues, have recently discovered that you're pretty smart, Einstein.”  
Dark memories suddenly flooded into Peter’s mind, a sharp gasp escaping him. The figure must've thought it was because they found out he wasn't as dumb as he looks, parading around in red and blue pajamas. No, it was way, _way_ worse than that.  
Long forgotten memories surged up through him, willing him into action as soon as the figure lightly caressed his throat.  
‘ _This is going to hurt_ ,’ Peter briefly thought before he swung his head up to slam against the figure’s, immediately knocking the figure out. Rapidly wiggling his wrists around, Peter broke the straps before moving his hands quickly to his throat, undoing it and moving onto his ankles. Once he was free, Peter quickly moved to the vent, opening the cover and climbing in and replacing the cover after him. Panic surging through him, Peter crawled quickly through the vents, desperately trying to find the outside.  
Finally, at the last vent cover, Peter curled up just on the inside, trying frantically to calm himself down. His hearing was drowned out and his hands were shaking so bad he couldn't get them to stick to anything. Taking a few moments, Peter took deep, grounding breaths to try to calm down.  
After what seems is an eternity, Peter’s breaths evened out and his hands only minimally shook.  
Peter pushed out on the vent cover and sent it flying.  
Time to go home, get patched up, and pass out.

  
3 - Crawling home wasn't always something he did as Spider-Man, sometimes he crawled home as Peter.  
Like now, as he walked down the sidewalk, bruised to all hell and keeping in a limp.  
And he still hasn't done that ten page essay on the reading he never did, so now he has to go all the way home, and gather his stuff, and then go all the way back out to the library in order to even start to think about the ten page essay, due the next day.

  
At the library, it's quiet and uneventful, until he gets two separate emails from two separate teachers, one from history and one from chemistry. Peter’s chemistry teacher asks him to ‘bring your grade up a little more please, you're slacking and I expect everyone in my class to get an A by the end of the semester’ while his history teacher politely asks him if he could make a poster on the Great Depression, with research and data, please and thank you, due in the morning the day after tomorrow at the very latest.  
Three things! Three things he has to worry about. It might not even seem like much, but Peter takes his education seriously! And it's already midnight! Not nearly enough time to make a poster, figure out what he's missing in chemistry, not to mention the ten page essay on reading that he didn't even do!  
So that's probably what drives Peter to sitting on the floor of the unused bathroom with his head between his knees, breathing heavily cold hard panic rushing through his veins. It _hurts_ too.  
The only thing to quickly drive him back down to earth is the fact he's wasting time, ‘ _Peter Parker, you pull yourself together or you'll never even get to start any of these_!’  
So, gathering up the rest of his sanity, previously sprawled out over the bathroom floor, Peter picks himself up on shaky legs, walks back out, and gets to work.  
Pete huffed out a breath.  
“ _Shh_!” Wow, that lady is rude.

  
4 - ‘ _Breath through it, you always make it, you'll be fine_.’ Peter sucks in deep breaths, edging the last few bits of panic away, go away, trembling hands slowly uncover Peter’s ears as he faintly hears echoes of gunshots, not even the most recent ones, the ones from a long time ago, about a year and a half, y’know, when his uncle was murdered in front of him.  
Peter stands up from where he was previously leaning against the wall, dusts off his Spider-Man suit, and full body shudders.  
Peter runs through what had happened in his head.  
Pete was swinging around New York, as he normally does now, regular routine for patrolling, when he had heard screaming. Screaming people usually means danger, right? Sure Peter, go check it out, it'll be fine, you won't have a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder-like flashback to when your uncle was murdered, no, absolutely not, you won't imagine the old man as your uncle, being brutally shot in the chest by a young woman, terror and malice in her eyes, the same emotions running through her as the man who had watched him, watched as Peter screamed for help. As the lady had ran away, he rushed to the man, trying to keep him alive. The bullet had went just to the right so that it probably only did things to his lungs, not his heart.  
“Uh, hello? Sir? Please, stay with me, an ambulance will be right here, I swear, you just have to stay with me until then, tell me a story or something, do you have kids? I bet you have grandkids, tell me a story about them?”  
“Alright, speedy, slow down,” the man coughed. “Well...I've got this one grandkid, Briana, she's always full of smiles, and this one time, she's playing on her bike and she comes up time with her knees and elbows all bloody and dirty and she has a spider in her hand, and all she does is, she doesn't even cry or anything, she just holds out this spider, and says, ‘Hey papa, I named him Johnny’ and she went along, playing with this spider, who kind of acted like an uninterested cat,” the man’s voice was only becoming more and more wet, and Peter could see blood pooling in his mouth. Peter could feel wetness sliding down his cheeks.  
“Well, sir, you'd better stay with me, to make sure you see Briana and her Johnny spider, alright, you have to,” Peter sniffled. “You have to tell Briana that you met Spider-Man, and that I have a friend Johnny too!”  
“But, young man, I'm getting very tired, and I'm afraid I won't be able to stay awake long enough for you to tell me any stories about your Johnny…”  
“Please sir! You have to understand, I need you to stay awake, _please_! Please!” But by then, the man had already stopped breathing, Peter still holding the man’s wound.

  
5 - It had been a long day, Peter was exhausted and he just wanted to get home, and cuddle his Aunt May for a few hours. She always helped calm him down, her presence warm and kind. Peter stepped into the house, nearly falling asleep.  
“Hey, Aunt May?” Peter called out. There was no answering call and that just _pushed_ Peter over the edge.  
She’s not okay, she got kidnapped ple _aseAuntMaypleasenotyoutoopleaseplease_ -  
And then her arms, her arms were wrapped around him and he was okay, he was okay-  
“-I promise, Peter, I'm fine honey, you're fine, it's going to be okay baby, come sit down-”  
-  
Peter came back to himself about a half an hour into Tangled, wrapped up in Aunt May’s arms and the softest blanket they owned.

  
+1 - What _was_ that? It sounded familiar…Tony was walking around whistling, making his coffee...whistling...whistling...WHAT _WAS_ _THAT_? Peter was only sitting at the table, innocently sipping coffee. Steve, Bruce, and Thor sat to his right and Clint, Natasha, and Sam to his left. Unmasked, Peter couldn't hide his fear when the normally cheerful tune registered.  
And then he was drowning in panic.  
Peter flashed back to when the song was less friendly, when it was sung through electricity, bass thrumming Peter’s _bones_ \- the vibrations following him as Harry _stole_ Gwen- the clock tower chiming that same eerie tune as Peter held Gwen’s dead body in his arms, _pleading_ for her to stay with him, please just stay, wake _up_ , _Gwen_! _GW_ -  
-Those were Natasha’s eyes, bright, vibrant green, why was she this close, she never gets too close to him, Peter takes extra care to make sure he doesn't piss her off, what'd he do now, wait where- where is she going? Natasha’s image gets blurry, and, along with that, Peter’s vision starts to black out.  
“-ETER! You listen to me right now, bug, you're hyperventilating, you need to calm down. You're having a panic attack and we need to help you, all of us want to help you, it's alright, it's going to be okay, I promise, and you know how good my promises are,” Natasha's strict voice makes the black dots fade away from Peter, and Peter follows her breathing carefully.  
A few minutes later, Peter relaxes his hands, looking down and finding them bloody from when he crumpled his coffee mug in his panic. Natasha cups his cheeks, gently leads him to look at her. Peter’s cheeks are wet as he stares back at Natasha. He feels someone grab his hands and start pulling ceramic pieces out of them. Looking down, he sees Bruce’s careful hands wrapped around tweezers and picking out the big pieces first.  
Peter's hands move up to take Natasha's away from his face as he looks around at everybody else. Clint is standing by, looking like he wants to wrap Peter up in bubble wrap and never let him out of the Tower, Thor is looking at Peter confusedly, Tony is leaning on the counter, gripping it like he might fall down, and Sam is helping Steve wipe up the mess Peter made with the coffee.  
“I-I’m so sorry, I didn't mean for that to happen, I'm sorry-”  
“Nobody ever _means_ for it to happen, panic attacks just happen, you don't get to give permission,” Sam calls up from the floor.  
“That was a panic attack?”  
“Yeah, Pete. You're gonna-”  
“But I have those all the time…that- nothing was even happening! It was just- Tony was whistling that _stupid_ _song_ …” Peter's voice fades and becomes weak, his hands flying up to press on his eyes. “Can I have a hug?” he asks with a broken voice, still covering his eyes. Immediately Natasha, Clint, and Thor were encompassing him. Natasha's hands drifted down and lifted Peter's thighs up so that she was holding him, his face buried in her neck.  
She carried him to the living room, everybody else following them. She sat down with Peter in her lap, clinging even with his spidery powers.  
Everybody sat down around them, Thor on the floor, Steve to Peter's right, Clint to Peter's left, Sam and Bruce were behind the couch, patching him up. Tony was calling Peter’s school, he had the 24 hour stomach flu.

  
Sniffling, Peter speaks up, "I wouldn't ask for better teammates.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> constructive criticism is always welcome!


End file.
